Recent NOTD: Milani Purple Gleam

Purple Gleam is one of the polishes in Milani's One Coat Glitter line that first started showing up in stores near the end of last year. When I wore it, I actually used two coats; it could have been one, except I didn't quite have my brush loading technique quite right for its dense texture and had some bald spots on the first coat. For something this packed with glitter, it's surprisingly smooth once it's on; I used only my normal one layer of top coat with it instead of the two (or sometimes three) that some glitters demand.

My camera did not feel like capturing the color of the polish and the color of my skin at the same time, so I let it make my skin redder so the polish could shine in these photos.





Purple Gleam is one of the glitters that appeared in the new core Milani display when my Meijer store re-set it recently. I was hoping the Jewel FX silver would be there too; when it wasn't, I ordered directly from Milani. (It's number 7 on my chunky glitters wheel). Also missing from this new core display is Red Sparkle, which was in the special Rockstar display where these first showed up (you can see that at the bottom of this entry.



There's no room in this new core display for the holos. Meijer also dropped two of the neons (Techno Red and Totally 80s), but those are still on Milani's site along with all the holos. I'll be interested to see what happens when CVS re-sets their Milani core displays.

Before I took this off, something happened that hasn't happened in weeks: I was outside when there was some sunshine. It wasn't very bright sunshine, but was still quite nice to see. Here are my nails in all their tip worn glory:



When I took this off, I used the foil method. I pretty much always do for full glitters like this (and crackles and anything else that might be stubborn). I don't know who came up with this idea; I first heard about it on the MUA nail board. In case there's anyone reading who hasn't been exposed to this technique, I wanted to share it, because I'd hate to think anyone was avoiding the pretty, pretty glitters for fear of having trouble removing them. I use cotton rounds cut into quarters, saturate them with Zoya Remove+ (or pure acetone with glycerin added depending on how much I've felt like spending on remover), put them on my nails, wrap small pieces of foil over them to hold them in place and keep the remover from drying up, and wait a few minutes. I do one hand at a time because it's awkward to wrap the second hand with foil fingers. When I think I've waited long enough, I slide the foil and cotton off and almost all of the polish comes with, leaving just a bit to clean up.





The foil method: learn it, use it, love it.